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The Ransacked Remains of Meteor City Trading Post

At daybreak I left the rest area and headed to the abandoned Meteor City trading post a dozen miles west of Winslow, AZ. Not an actual city, the trading post is named for the nearby crater Barringer Crater, where the Canyon Diablo Meteorite hit 50,000 years ago.

The site was much smaller than Two Guns, which I'd explored the previous day, but this place had only been abandoned for 2 years, so I figured there would still be plenty to see.

Meteor City trading post is notable for three things:

The "world's largest dream catcher."

The "world's longest map of Route 66."

The mohawked geodesic dome.

According to Guinness World Records, the dream catcher is no longer the world's largest, if it ever truly did hold that distinction. The large hole in it has probably reduced its dream catching ability anyway.

Bob Waldmire painted the 100 foot "world's largest map of Route 66" on an exterior wall. It fell into disrepair and was repainted by volunteers in 2002 or 2003. The wall on which it is painted has since collapsed. According to this, it would not be the longest even if it were still standing.

The collapsed wall where the 100 foot map of Route 66 was painted

The business began as a service station opened in 1938 by Joseph Sharber. In 1941 Jack Newsum took over, gave it the name Meteor City, and turned it into an attraction where one could purchase gas, groceries, and curios. A roadside sign advertised it as a city with a population of 1. After Newsum married in 1946, he updated the population to 2.

The trading post's signature dome was added in 1979. It appeared in the 1984 movie Starman, directed by John Carpenter and starring Jeff Bridges.

In 1990 the dome burned down and was replaced by the structure that remains today.

In 2001, Meteor City closed briefly and was reopened later that year with new owners Richard and Ermila Benton. It closed again in December of 2012 and was put up for sale for $150,000. It doesn't look like it will ever be reopened.

The place was in pretty bad shape when I visited, even though it had only been 2 years since it closed. The display cases were still inside, but everything had been ransacked.

The landmark is surrounded by concrete teepees.

Inside one of the teepees:

Behind the dome are several badly vandalized trailer homes

Must've been a nice place for a BBQ.

The floor was rotting through in a few places.

The bedrooms were in rough shape.

When the shop owner walked out his front door every morning, he was greeted by the geodesic dome.

There was also a little workshop behind the store.

A small structure served as the employee break room.

On the wall of the break room was this announcement for the circus coming to the nearby town of Winslow.

Popcorn, anyone?

Used up prayer candles

A semi trailer sits out back, filled with a few odds and ends. It looks as if the previous owners never quite finished packing up before they left.

Not even the promise of free coffee could keep Meteor City open.

This portrait lay in a garbage can inside the trailer.

Faded artwork is still visible on the outside walls of the structures, though some has been covered and defaced.

I agree, Sue! I treat these places like museums or historical places that should be left to decay peacefully on their own. I try to pass through them like a ghost, disturbing nothing and leaving no indication I was there. Most urban explorers I know are the same way.

I hate to sound like a grouchy old man, but I also suspect teenagers are the culprits. Boredom and peer pressure often seem to lead to wanton destruction.

I visited meteor city with my Dad back in 2012, just months before it closed. The shop keeper appeared to be living there and was a depressed looking single mother with two children who in no doubt was going through rough times. It looked like we may have been the first customers that month. Out of pity, we purchased some items from her hoping for the best and continued on our Route 66 tour. In 2015, we revisited the location, just a month before you did. It was closed and dark. The door was closed and the structure appeared to not be ransacked, which means the vandals hit this location sometime in late July or early August. It breaks my heart to see the place like this, especially since I can remember clearly when it was still open filled with Navajo and Route 66 curios. I hope the mother and her kids are doing well too.

So neat that you got to see the place before and after it closed. That's sad about the single mother, and nice of you to support her business by buying something. I hope she's doing alright. It'd be nice if the place got reopened, but it seems like there just isn't enough business to keep a place like that profitable.

I stopped by a long time ago (at least a decade, not sure exactly) and still have a Meteor City t-shirt that I fell in love with for reasons I found hard to explain. It's literally just a red shirt with METEOR CITY AZ in plain black block letters. Something about the almost absurd lack of attempt to make it interesting somehow made it interesting to me. I'm sad to hear the place is in ruins.

Found my pictures, in case you're interested. I pulled the shirt out of my daughter's hamper and took a picture so I could include that too, of course it was MUCH less faded when we bought it. Shame I can't get a replacement.